Campaign to abolish death penalty after deaths of innocents

[ichy]

Odds are they were railroaded through court anyway

Are you retarded? Most capital cases take years just to get to trial. Railroading not found.

 

[ichy]

You can't appeal the results of a trial; you can only appeal something that would have made the process unreliable or unfair. Appellate courts don't retry the case and cannot overturn the verdict, they can only invalidate the trial itself, or the sentence itself.

I understand that that's how it works but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to change it.

 

[nehalem256]

/facepalm

Go stand against a wall, I want to practice knife throwing. Don't worry about it, there are acceptable margins of error...

You analogy fails because there is no reason to allow you to practice throwing knives at me regardless of the margin of error.

 

[ichy]

It's really quite simple. If 1000 people are put to death, and 1 of them was innocent, the death penalty should be abolished. There is no acceptable margin of error when it comes to the death penalty.

If a thousand murderers get life sentences instead of death and one of them murders a guard during his incarceration what would you say then?

 

[ichy]

Go stand against a wall, I want to practice knife throwing. Don't worry about it, there are acceptable margins of error...

That's a strawman argument if I ever saw one.

 

[nehalem256]

If a thousand murderers get life sentences instead of death and one of them murders a guard during his incarceration what would you say then?

Or what if he kills a fellow prisoner who is in on a non-murder charge.

Or what if liberals decide life in prison is "inhumane" and let him out and he murders again.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/dec/05/whole-life-prison-sentence-human-rights

 

[BoberFett]

You analogy fails because there is no reason to allow you to practice throwing knives at me regardless of the margin of error.

That's a strawman argument if I ever saw one.

When an innocent person is put to death, you call that acceptable risk.

I consider throwing knives at your heads to hone my skills an acceptable risk.

You both fail, as usual.

 

[nehalem256]

When an innocent person is put to death, you call that acceptable risk.

I consider throwing knives at your heads to hone my skills an acceptable risk.

You both fail, as usual.

Except we are not putting an innocent person to death. We are putting a person with a 1 in 10,000 chance of being innocent to death and a 9,999 in 10,000 chance of being a murderer to death.

The 2nd issue is that there is no reason for me to allow you to throw knives at my head(no matter how awesome your skills are), whereas there is a reason to put a murderer to death.

 

[piasabird]

Anyone who uses a firearm in the commission of crime deserves the death penalty.

 

[piasabird]

Then the prisons fill up and more prisoners excape or are given an early release for the next batch of criminals. Just put them all to death.

 

[BoberFett]

Except we are not putting an innocent person to death. We are putting a person with a 1 in 10,000 chance of being innocent to death and a 9,999 in 10,000 chance of being a murderer to death.

The 2nd issue is that there is no reason for me to allow you to throw knives at my head(no matter how awesome your skills are), whereas there is a reason to put a murderer to death.

How does it feel when you pull statistics from your ass? Do you they slip out easily or do you really have pull hard?

 

[nehalem256]

How does it feel when you pull statistics from your ass? Do you they slip out easily or do you really have pull hard?

You do realize we were discussing

It's really quite simple. If 1000 people are put to death, and 1 of them was innocent, the death penalty should be abolished. There is no acceptable margin of error when it comes to the death penalty. Only perfect is acceptable

For some reason nothing else is held to this standard (Even when death or serious injury can result).

The only logical conclusion is that people who present such perverted logic are really just opposed to the death penalty regardless of whether an innocent person could possibly die and are just trying to post-hoc justify it.

 

[zinfamous]

You see the funny thing is a bet many people who oppose the death penalty would oppose it even if it is 100% certain the person is guilty.

why is that funny? It cuts to the core of those who oppose this as defining the death penalty as inherently immoral in a modern society.

One argument is that yes--the death penalty is flawed if an innocent is ever put to death; something that most proponents tend to agree with. yet...it clearly happens, and such people still support it. So, do proponents really care about killing innocents? Of course they don't.

Another argument is that the death penalty is simply legalized vengeance. It is not on us to determine the life of another human, for whatever reason. Anyone who considers themselves Christians have no choice but to agree with this. Yet...they find ways to ignore it. Baffling, I know.

Draco has been dead for 2600 years. Surely, we should think that we have progressed since then?

 

[nehalem256]

Another argument is that the death penalty is simply legalized vengeance. It is not on us to determine the life of another human, for whatever reason. Anyone who considers themselves Christians have no choice but to agree with this. Yet...they find ways to ignore it. Baffling, I know.

So by this argument if someone comes at you with a knife and you shoot them to protect yourself you are in the wrong.

Draco has been dead for 2600 years. Surely, we should think that we have progressed since then?

Why is not executing murderers "progress"?

Also note that while many opponents of the death penalty will see we can just keep them in prison for life, Europe, which has already abolished the death penalty now has people advocating for the elimination of life imprison.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/dec/05/whole-life-prison-sentence-human-rights

I don't see this as progress.

 

[Chuck_v]

In Texas, they figure that it takes balls to execute an innocent man, and they admire Rick Perry all the more if it looks like he has.

Execution is the ultimate authoritarian act, and they luvs their authority.

The lesson to be learned then is real straight forward....DO NOT F**K WITH TEXAS.

 

[ichy]

One argument is that yes--the death penalty is flawed if an innocent is ever put to death; something that most proponents tend to agree with. yet...it clearly happens, and such people still support it. So, do proponents really care about killing innocents? Of course they don't.

Actually no, the execution of innocent people does not clearly happen. Look at the original article that this thread referenced. The best cases of supposedly wrongful executions that they could come up with were weak-ass bullshit.

 

[ichy]

Another argument is that the death penalty is simply legalized vengeance. It is not on us to determine the life of another human, for whatever reason. Anyone who considers themselves Christians have no choice but to agree with this. Yet...they find ways to ignore it. Baffling, I know.

I suggest that you read up on some of the inmates that are incarcerated at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, or at California's Pelican Bay state prison. There are criminals who are a threat to other inmates, to guards and to the general public even when they are incarcerated in a maximum security prison. Executing people like that isn't vengeance, it's protecting society.

 

[ichy]

Also, there is a difference between revenge and retribution. Retributive justice must be directed at a wrongdoer and it must be proportional to the crime that was committed. For the worst of the worst, those whom we rightfully hate and despise the death penalty is a measured and proportional response to what they have done.

 

[zinfamous]

So by this argument if someone comes at you with a knife and you shoot them to protect yourself you are in the wrong.

Oh, hello strawman, so very nice to see you!

if you aren't going to address the topic, then there is no point discussing this with you.

 

[nehalem256]

I suggest that you read up on some of the inmates that are incarcerated at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, or at California's Pelican Bay state prison. There are criminals who are a threat to other inmates, to guards and to the general public even when they are incarcerated in a maximum security prison. Executing people like that isn't vengeance, it's protecting society.

Even beyond that. There is nothing unjust about the idea that if you intentionally take someone else's life that your life should be forfeit.

 

[zinfamous]

There is nothing unjust about the idea that if you intentionally take someone else's life that your life should be forfeit.

apply that statement to your strawman argument you tried to toss at me, troll.

 

[nehalem256]

Oh, hello strawman, so very nice to see you!

if you aren't going to address the topic, then there is no point discussing this with you.

You claimed

It is not on us to determine the life of another human, for whatever reason.

If you kill someone in self-defense you are determining the life of another human. So by your statement self-defense is wrong.

Sorry if you don't like having the nonsense of your beliefs exposed.

 

[ichy]

The notion that everyone's life has inherent value is offensive and immoral. The kinds of people who are capable of committing crimes like this are not the same as us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-Fi_murders

With five people now in the basement, Pierre told Andrews to get something from out of their van. Andrews returned with a bottle in a brown paper bag, from which Pierre poured a cup of blue liquid. Pierre ordered Orren to administer the liquid to the other hostages, but he refused, and was bound, gagged and left face-down on the basement floor.

Pierre and Andrews then propped each of the victims into sitting positions and forced them to drink the liquid, telling them it was vodka laced with sleeping pills. Rather, it was liquid Drano. The moment it touched the hostages' lips, enormous blisters rose, and it began to burn their tongues and throats and peel away the flesh around their mouths. Ansley, still begging for her life, was forced to drink the drain cleaner too, although she was reported (by Orren Walker) to have coughed less than the other victims. Pierre and Andrews tried to duct-tape the hostages' mouths shut to hold quantities of drain cleaner in and to silence their screams, but pus oozing from the blisters prevented the adhesive from sticking. Orren Walker was the last to be given the drain cleaner, but seeing what was happening to the other hostages, he allowed it to pour out of his mouth and then faked the convulsions and screams of his son and fellow hostages.

Pierre became angry because the deaths were taking too long and were too loud and messy, so he shot both Carol and Cortney Naisbitt in the backs of their heads. Pierre then shot at Orren Walker but missed. He then fatally shot Stanley before again shooting at Orren, this time grazing the back of his head.

Pierre then took Ansley to the far corner of the basement, forced her at gunpoint to remove her clothes, then repeatedly and brutally raped her, after telling Andrews to clear out for 30 minutes. When he was done, he allowed her to use the bathroom while he watched, then dragged her, still naked, back to the other hostages, threw her on her face, and fatally shot her in the back of the head.[6]

Andrews and Pierre noted that Orren was still alive, so Pierre mounted him, wrapped a wire around his throat, and tried to strangle him. When this failed, Pierre and Andrews inserted a ballpoint pen into Orren's ear, and Pierre stomped it until it punctured his eardrum, broke, and exited the side of his throat. Pierre and Andrews then went upstairs, finished loading equipment into their van, and departed.

There's another quote that I absolutely love from an old death penalty case in Maryland. The criminal who was on trial was a drug dealer who'd order the contract killing of two witnesses in a federal drug case. As the prosecution put it:

"To do less than the death penalty in this case devalues the lives of Scott Piechowicz and Susan Kennedy. To do less than the death penalty in this case diminishes all of us, all of us who uphold the laws of this state, all of us law abiding citizens who believe in our system of justice. "

I support the death penalty because I value human life. Not imposing a uniquely terrible penalty on those who commit murder cheapens the value of the lives of decent, non-murderous people.

 

[nehalem256]

apply that statement to your strawman argument you tried to toss at me, troll.

Ok, sorry I should have more properly worded it as the "intentional taking of another's life without mitigating circumstances".

This is why not even all straight up murderers should be executed.

EDIT: And I never claimed that execution was necessary for justice in all cases.

 

[Subyman]

I believe we should change the criminal system from being a burden on society to being at least neutral. Put them to work, and I don't mean chain gangs. Make them sew cloths, put together electronics, or whatever. All they do right now is sit, eat, and fight each other. Have them work off their debt to society instead of "do time."